1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing condition determining apparatus for determining image processing conditions to define contents of image processing when the image processing is applied to an original image, and an image processing condition determining program storage medium storing an image processing condition determining program which causes a computer system to operate as an image processing condition determining apparatus when the image processing condition determining program is executed in the computer system.
2. Description of the Related Art
Hitherto, it is widely performed that a printed matter is created by a printing machine in accordance with an original image that is obtained through reading a document image by a scanner for instance. In a creating process of the printed matter, usually, an image processing is applied to the original image in order to obtain a good finish of image. This image processing is performed in accordance with a predetermined image processing condition representative of contents of image processing. A suitable set up of the image processing condition makes it possible to apply a desired image processing to the original image.
The image processing condition includes, for example, factors representative of curvatures of a highlight curve, a halftone curve and shadow curve, which represent transformation relationships between density of pretreatment image and density of treated image, in image processing. In other words, the image processing condition is defined by a set of parameter values of a plurality of parameters of the factors as mentioned above.
In the a creating process of the printed matter, usually, there is use an image processing condition determining apparatus for determining such an image processing condition. In the image processing condition determining apparatus, it is known one in which an original image is analyzed to automatically compute and set up image processing condition to be considered as the optimum for the original image in accordance with an analysis result.
For example, a density profile representative of a density distribution of an image is created from the pretreatment image, and the optimum value of the factor representative of the curvature of the highlight curve is automatically computed in accordance with the density profile.
However, there is a case where a tendency of image processing is out of an operator's intention in such a way that an image, which is subjected to the image processing in accordance with the image processing condition thus automatically computed and set up, is always slightly dark, or a green involved in the image processing is always out of the operator's favorite green. And thus, there is a requirement to adjust deviation of such a tendency of image processing.
As an image processing condition determining apparatus, there is known one in which in order that a general operator can readily adjust deviation of such a tendency of image processing, deviation of a tendency of image processing is adjusted in such a manner that a plurality of variation images, wherein the obtained image is varied with respect to a parameter, are displayed, an image is selected from the displayed variation images, and an image processing condition, which involves the selected image, is established as a new image processing condition. Further, there is considered another type of image processing condition determining apparatus in which a desired image is selected from among a plurality of various variation images which are arranged on a two-dimensional base, for example, in such a way that a vertical axis represents brightness and a horizontal axis represents variation of saturation, so that a degree of freedom of adjustment is increased.
However, there exist many sorts of parameters defining an image processing condition. And thus, this involves such problems that it is difficult for an operator to meet a desired image, even if such variation images are displayed.